May 16, 2015

"Asian-American students with almost perfect college entrance-exam scores, top 1 percent grade-point averages, academic awards and leadership positions are more likely to be rejected than similar applicants of other races, according to their administrative complaint, filed Friday with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights," Bloomberg reports.

Harvard denies any discrimination....

Robert Iuliano, the school’s general counsel said in a statement that the college’s admissions policies comply fully with the law and are essential to the school’s mission. "The college considers each applicant through an individualized, holistic review having the goal of creating a vibrant academic community that exposes students to a wide range of differences: background, ideas, experiences, talents and aspirations," Iuliano said.

That idea has worked when traditionally discriminated-against applicants are given a plus factor, but it should be much harder to sell when explaining a minus factor. We're used to white applicants losing a few positions at Harvard each year to give a boost to some applicants from traditionally discriminated-against groups. The compelling interest that has worked in the court cases is the school's idea of diversity in the classroom — as Iuliano put it: "creating a vibrant academic community that exposes students to a wide
range of differences: background, ideas, experiences, talents and
aspiration." That's a "trust us" abstraction that has allowed schools to avoid what it perceives as the problem of too many white people, but there will be more skepticism when it means not enough white people.

I got to that article via David Lat on Facebook, where he begins by wondering "if the objection to a 70 percent Asian student body... is, to put it bluntly, 'aesthetic.'" Later, he clarifies:

What I was trying to suggest is that maybe Harvard isn't "racist" against Asians in some kind of animus-driven or "we think you are inferior" way, but instead has an "aesthetic" issue with, well, too many people of one group running around... not wanting "a student body that's 70% anything." But I'd suggest that a student body that's 70% white, which Harvard had at some point -- and might still have, I haven't checked the current stats -- is really not any "worse" than a student body that's 70% Asian, except perhaps from an "aesthetic" perspective. (I will concede -- and I can do this as an Asian-American -- that we have less "aesthetic" diversity than whites, because whites have greater differentiation in hair color and eye color. So if you're thinking in terms of what makes admissions brochures look like Benetton ads, you don't want 70% Asians -- but you can get away with more whites because you can have blondes, brunettes, and redheads, with brown eyes, blue eyes, and green eyes. That's what I mean by "aesthetic" diversity -- or "visual diversity," as admissions consultants for fancy private schools here in New York like to say. My Filipina cousin was trying to get her white-looking son into one of these schools and asked if his being half-Asian would help from a diversity perspective. The consultant said no, because "he doesn't offer visual diversity.")

That might help us understand why people who are not racist would do it, but I don't see how it fits the classroom diversity idea that has been the only compelling interest that has supported affirmative action in the Supreme Court cases. "Aesthetics" is a word Clarence Thomas used in dissent, criticizing the classroom diversity idea:

A distinction between these two ideas (unique educational benefits based on racial aesthetics and race for its own sake) is purely sophistic — so much so that the majority uses them interchangeably. Compare ante, at 16 (“[T]he Law School has a compelling interest in attaining a diverse student body”), with ante, at 21 (referring to the “compelling interest in securing the educational benefits of a diverse student body” (emphasis added)). The Law School’s argument, as facile as it is, can only be understood in one way: Classroom aesthetics yields educational benefits, racially discriminatory admissions policies are required to achieve the right racial mix, and therefore the policies are required to achieve the educational benefits. It is the educational benefits that are the end, or allegedly compelling state interest, not “diversity.”

Harvard's lawyer spoke of the "vibrant academic community that exposes students to a wide range of
differences: background, ideas, experiences, talents and aspirations" — that is, an environment that provides educational benefit to everyone who attends the school. That doesn't translate too well into the need to see enough blond hair. And nobody, not even David Lat, wants to get caught saying you people all look alike.

Does Harvard fail to recognize that most Asian applicants (Or their parents) came out of poverty-infected "hoods" by following in a cultural path as honored scholars rather than "Hip Hop" proponents and other thugs.

It appears that those at Harvard are "slow learners" as they did the same as to Jews.

There will always be a place at Harvard for the children of rich, influential white people. The whites that get screwed are the lower middle class ones........Why not have a variety of elite schools. Make one elite school for bright kids but with admittance under racially diverse guidelines. Make the other elite school for bright kids and admittance based strictly on exams. Have another elite school based strictly on the wealth of the parents so rich kids can network. We need more diversity in the admittance practices of out elite institutions.

Racial discrimination is beautiful!By God, I believe that Lat said an all-white student body have more inherent diversity than an all-Asian or all-Black student body. It's built right into us white people!Diversity is better! White people are better at being diverse than anyone!

"We're used to white applicants losing a few positions at Harvard each year to give a boost to some applicants from traditionally discriminated-against groups."

Whites have been discriminated against in this manner for about 50 years now. Not just in college admissions, but in business hiring and promotions.

At what point do white people then become a "traditionally discriminated group"?

Also, most of the whites discriminated against are descendants of people that sacrificed considerably to put an end to southern white Democrat's discrimination against blacks. How do you justify discrimination against them?

Then, of course, there's the fact that an ever increasing percentage of blacks are receiving the benefits of discrimination in their favor even though they, or their parents/grandparents emigrated to the US well after the end of the Jim Crow era. So, why do they get to be the beneficiaries of racial discrimination?

Actually, that isn't it. It is affirmative action for the unqualified that is under attack. It isn't that new. My daughter was turned down by UCLA law school in the 80s and went elsewhere while her suite mate at USC (a private U) went to UCLA. the other girl had a lower GPA and a lower LSAT but was Hispanic. I don;t know that UCKLA was any better law school than Gonzaga where she graduated but the cost was a lot more and she had to move to another state for years.

The other girl was not as unqualified as, for example, the black student who took the place of Alan Bakke in the UC Davis medical school in the late 70s. He ultimately lost his medical license.for criminal activity.

Harvard is just the tip of the iceberg. This discrimination is seen across all educational institutions.I have been in San Francisco school board meetings where the (mostly white) board was openly contemptuous toward Chinese students and parents over high school admissions. And the argument was diversity.

If Harvard admitted solely based on merit, its endowment would probably shrink. If you look at the "African-Americans" that are admitted a really big chunk are children of celebrities or well-to-do immigrants. Diversity is great so long as the families of most of the admitted students have lots of money. My guess is that Harvard calculates that too many of these bright Asian kids come from workaholic families who are not likely to be generous donors to the $36.5 billion Harvard endowment.

There is some very screwy thinking going on here. If Blacks and Hispanics are given points because they belong to historically discriminated against groups, that doesn't mean that they are being discriminated against now, at least not in college admissions. It means that because of past discrimination they may not have the wealth, cultural expectations, family support, whatever, that non-traditionally discriminated against groups have experienced. The flip side is that whites are over represented in college because they once were not discriminated against.Asians don't really fit into this calculation. There was never a time, I think, when Asians were preferentially accepted to colleges while Blacks and Hispanics were purposely denied entrance to college. So the only way to be properly unfair is to give preference to Blacks and Hispanics, take preference away from whites, and neither give nor take preference to Asians.

ARM: Affirmative action for white people under attack. Next they will be complaining about legacy admissions.

Yes, the millions of white children in America who have parents who went to Ivy League Schools. When will their privilege end? (What, you're white and your parents didn't go to Harvard? Pshaw! Stop wasting my time with your statistically improbable diversionary factoids.)

Count on ARM to take what is really quite an interesting topic - much more interesting and complex than the headlines and various aggrieved parties attest - and dumb it down into stoned-sophomore talking points well past their sell-by date. Though to be be fair to you, the conservatives fixated on "meritocracy" and 1930s Jewish quotas aren't really paying attention, either.

On a personal level, I'm not going to get all weepy about (some groups of) Asians being discriminated against at prestigious schools (and they are), because they wouldn't want my high-achieving children, either, for comparable reasons - they're the wrong kind of high achievers.*

On a more general level, the real problem isn't that the prestige schools have selection biases (which they have to have no matter what, because there are tens of thousands of qualified applicants by any objective measures available, and only a few thousand places). It's that we seem to be allowing ourselves more and more to be ruled by the winners of this particular crapshoot, and they're going to tend to sclerose into a class of self-serving ideologue bozos, no matter what the original set of biases happens to be. The "meritocratic" class is artificially restricted, which is bad, even putting aside the problematic nature of governing "meritocracies" in themselves.

*"One of Ephanshade’s most striking findings was that excelling in certain types of completely mainstream high school activities actually reduced a student’s admission chances by 60–65 percent [ceteris paribus], apparently because teenagers with such interests were regarded with considerable disfavor by the sort of people employed in admissions; these were ROTC, 4-H Clubs, Future Farmers of America, and various similar organizations.87 Consider that these reported activities were totally mainstream, innocuous, and non-ideological, yet might easily get an applicant rejected, presumably for being cultural markers." (From The Myth of American Meritocracy, which runs the stats on anti-Asian discrimination.)

Re: Anglelyne's comment.If you were to put it a vote by white people, legacy admissions would be done away with, along with affirmative action. Many more white people are disadvantaged by legacy admissions than are advantaged by them.But I know there is this this weird loopy thinking on the Left that AA somehow counters legacy admissions.

"It's that we seem to be allowing ourselves more and more to be ruled by the winners of this particular crapshoot, and they're going to tend to sclerose into a class of self-serving ideologue bozos,"

There is an interesting piece on high school students who are accepted to Harvard but go somewhere else, like U of Alabama. There is no difference in future success. The gleaning process takes place at college admissions. Harvard adds nothing to that by its education. Maybe social contacts but that will grow weaker.

J. Farmer, I've heard that in the peak years of pre-WW2 progressivism, they would select by appearance. Not just "no Jews", but the more handsome and aryan looking, the better.Selection by aesthetics has a great history. We should do more of it.

"it was actually forced to look at other non-academic qualities to differentiate."

"Forced" seems a bit strong. If your candidates are all so good that there's no way to rank them objectively, then by necessity non-objective factors are going to come into play. But I don't think you'll get Harvard to admit that "yeah, we just pick whomever we feel like letting in".

UC Irvine is one of those UCs where they dump kids that are required to be UC qualified by law, but do not get into the desirable UCs like Berkeley or UCLA. The prestige UCs these days are also heavily into foreign student tuition revenue business.

Angelyne, as usual, has the facts wrong. At Harvard the legacy acceptance rate is 30 percent compared to less than 5% for everyone else. The kid up the street from me got into Harvard on a legacy admission whereas academically stronger kids from the same school did not. Legacy admissions are both a distortion of the admissions process and impossible to justify on any other basis, such as a contribution to the social good.

The idea that there is no way to further discriminate academically beyond the pool of elite applicants that Harvard gets is silly. Cal Tech does, for one.All they need to do, alternatively, is use their own entrance test.They could ask places like IIT.

AReasonableMan unreasonably wrote:" . . .a distortion of the admissions process and impossible to justify on any other basis, such as a contribution to the social good."ARM, you have no idea what "the social good" is. I don't know what "the social good" is. You know what you want, is all.

Virgil Hilts said...If Harvard admitted solely based on merit, its endowment would probably shrink. If you look at the "African-Americans" that are admitted a really big chunk are children of celebrities or well-to-do immigrants. Diversity is great so long as the families of most of the admitted students have lots of money. My guess is that Harvard calculates that too many of these bright Asian kids come from workaholic families who are not likely to be generous donors to the $36.5 billion Harvard endowment.

Terry, I think we can all agree that legacy admissions do not contribute anything to any conceivable social good. Making life even easier for the kids of the very wealthy and/or connected does not strike me as something we want to make a habit of. Otherwise, we may end up with even more incompetent fools as civic and business leaders, I give you Bush Jr as the perfect example.

As usual Angelyne allows superficial snark to impede her progress towards any actual thinking. The topic is Harvard. At Harvard, legacy admissions are a significant factor for those whose kids might qualify. This is not even vaguely controversial. There are people on this forum whose children would have been disadvantaged by this policy.

I wonder what the Harvard admissions department makes of Robert Putnam's research demonstrating that ethnic diversity in a community is mostly bad news for that community, intra-ethnically and inter-ethnically.

Harvard is the target because it has the highest profile. In truth the complaint can justly be made against nearly every case of a selective educational institution across the country, down to the preschool level, and to both state and private institutions. Legacy admissions and similar quibbles are mere distractions from the absolutely clear and indisputable facts.

ARM, Harvard (and Princeton and Yale and other places) receive so many applications from the top 1% of students that they can make up pretty much any reason they want for acceptance and rejection.

It seems difficult for most people to realize this: you're not going to find a stupid legacy-admission at MIT or Princeton. They just don't get in. (You might find a stupid athlete at Standord, though.)

Legacy admissions are both a distortion of the admissions process and impossible to justify on any other basis, such as a contribution to the social good.

Legacy admissions drive up college donations, which allows the college to give scholarships to deserving students who otherwise could not afford to attend. there is a social good.

Universities and colleges need legacy admissions to drive up contributions and preserve/transmit the culture of the institution. unless it is shown that a legacy system is designed to discriminate against minority legacy candidates, I am fine with it.

"Legacy admissions are both a distortion of the admissions process and impossible to justify on any other basis, such as a contribution to the social good."

ARM, no doubt you are pleased by the fact that admissions committees since the 60s tend to discriminate against the children of doctors. When I was a medical student in the 60s, the head of admissions was a PhD in Psychology who considered it a matter of pride that he rejected almost all children of doctors.

Now, that seems to be changing but my students include only one Caucasian and they all have physician parents. One girl, extremely smart, says her mother chose her father in a marriage site in India because he was the only one who submitted a color photograph and because he said he was applying to medical school.

My medical school class, chosen by the psychologist, was an odd one with many non-science majors and half the class went into Psychiatry. Subsequent classes had many drug users as the 60s wound on and some never practiced. It was a disastrous policy. It seems to have been reversed, at least for non-white applicants.

The action is being taken against Harvard, as it is a strike at the top, an exercise of power against the whole system must hit the pinnacle. It is meant to shatter the whole structure. Harvard-only or Ivy-only arguments are pointless. This isn't about Harvard, other than incidentally.

The real point of this is so people like the FOB (fresh off the boat) Chinese ladies, confronting the likes of the San Francisco school board, can tell them "we beat Harvard, we can beat you too". Educational bureacrats must be made to fear Asians.

Michael K said...ARM, no doubt you are pleased by the fact that admissions committees since the 60s tend to discriminate against the children of doctors. When I was a medical student in the 60s, the head of admissions was a PhD in Psychology who considered it a matter of pride that he rejected almost all children of doctors.

Findings: "If all other credentials are equal, Asian-Americans need to score 140 points more than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics, and 450 points above African-Americans out of a maximum 1,600 on the math and reading SAT to have the same chance of admission to a private college, the book found. In an interview, Espenshade said more evidence is needed to prove that Asian-Americans are facing discrimination because the schools evaluate “soft information”"

Right. 270 and 450 points is not enough "evidence."

The dirty secret in admissions is that there isn't a large enough supply of academically qualified, >1400 SAT native-born blacks and Hispanics to satisfy diversity demand at the top 100 institutions.

The Harvard suit may lay bare the extent of discrimination there a bit more clearly, but the basic facts are already pretty clear.

Of course, private institutions should be allowed to discriminate any way they like. But as long as the regime demands nondiscrimination, it's worth trying to expose the hypocrisy and Prog machinations in "holistic," "case-by-case" review.

Someone above was whining about Harvard admitting 30% legacies. But why is it any of our business? It is a private corporation doing its own thing.

That said, legacy admits have changed enormously over the last 50 years, as those of us who have lived through the college admissions process recently can attest. The big thing to note is that for most schools, including at least some Ivy League schools, legacy admissions are tied closely to giving to the school. You need to be showing a history of giving. And sometimes a single big enough gift will work (think of Teddy Kennedy's law degree from UVA). Non legacies may need to give more, but they too can buy their way in.

My memory ofthe small liberal arts school I attended is that you needed to have given most of 4 years tuition over the life of your kid to get them a legacy admission. Another parent, a 3rd generation Dartmouth grad, had a similar experience. Luckily, neither of our kids had any interest in attending our alma maters

As I said above, it is about the money. Which means that those endowment dollars that allow Minority poor to attend, etc, are coming to a great extent from the parents of the legacy admits, as well as the new buildings on campus, etc.

While Harvard's admission process is substantially corrupt, they are a private institution and should admit whoever they want. They already admit 20% Asian. How many soulless swotters can they admit without becoming MIT? Besides they need the slots for NAMs and legacie admits.

"It is a cultural thing. Asian families value educate and recognize it as the path to a better life."

We have all the DirecTV Mandarin language channels at home, because both our boys are studying Mandarin. Many of the commercials come out of Orange County. Approx. one of every five commercials is for SAT prep classes, and shows kids getting 2400 on their SATs, then getting Stanford and Cal acceptance letters. It's not a comfortable question to ask, but how many hours of Univision or BET would I have to watch before I saw a similar ad?

buwaya puti: The real point of this is so people like the FOB (fresh off the boat) Chinese ladies, confronting the likes of the San Francisco school board, can tell them "we beat Harvard, we can beat you too".Educational bureacrats must be made to fear Asians.

Cynic that I am, I find this SWPL hypocrites v. FOB Chinese ladies cage match scenario highly hilarious. Watching "the contradictions inherent in the system" play out in the next couple of decades is going to be one rip-roaring show.

I wouldn't underestimate those school board SWPLs, bp. They may seem like a bunch of noodle-armed PC ninnies right now, but underneath it all they have as keen and ferocious a sense of their own self-interest as any FOB Chinese striver, whatever their present confused prevarications about "diversity" blah blah blah may lead an observer to believe. (And they're probably almost as racist!) They don't dislike and resist Asian-ized schools because their children are dumb slackers who can't compete. They'll either come out swinging or gradually abandon the public school system, like whites in other parts of the country. I doubt they'll waste much time quaking in their boots over irate FOB ladies and Harvard lawsuits.

Gook is the Korean word for people. They call themselves Hangook, meaning people of the Han River. They call Americans Migook. I Don't know exactly what that means. Interestingly, they do not consider Japanese to be gooks.

My eldest has been accepted by the University of Washington and we popped up for a little tour/orientation and to watch Laslo do improv at the Paramount. I'm a merit guy, so fuck affirmative action, but I was struck by the masses of Asian students in evidence everywhere on the campus. Totally anecdotal and perhaps skewed by my inner racist, but it seemed that easily 50% of the students I saw were of Asian ancestry. Regardless, the numbers were not proportional to the racial makeup of Washington State. Probably, all the white kids are at WSU and the black kids are at Eastern.I made up the part about Laslo doing improv.

Apparently ARM cannot distinguish the difference between legacy admissions who on their own merits would qualify without the legacy and those affirmative action admissions who without the handicapping would not qualify.

Apparently he doesn't understand the concept that all else being more or less the same academically it's OK to accept the legacy applicant.

As for Harvard's endless need to fund raise that is another story. With that amount of money the university has it ought to lose it's charitable tax exemption along with it's charitable status for tax deductible donations.

At Harvard the legacy acceptance rate is 30 percent compared to less than 5% for everyone else.

I think the characteristics of that 30% vs. 5% matter a lot more to me than the raw number. If legacy admittees have markedly inferior academic statistics than non-legacy admittees, then I would say that's a problem. If it's truly just an (extremely advantageous) tiebreaker, I don't actually care all that much.

What I have heard in the past ist hat legacy admittees have academic records that are basically average as far as each entering class is concerned. Of course, that "average" includes affirmative action and athletics admittees who on average have substantially inferior academic records, so legacy admittees probably are markedly inferior to the population of "normal" matriculating students, who weren't beneficiaries of affirmative action, legacy preferences, or athletic recruitment.

And if that's the case, then I think the criteria for legacy preferences ought to be tightened up until they're only letting in legacy admittees whose stats are on par with that "normal" student population.

In the past, I've thought of "acceptable" affirmative action as a tiebreaker, but of course, if you break all the ties for low scoring applicants in favour of Blacks and Hispanics (or legacy admittees), you're going to be stuck with a student population where Blacks and Hispanics and legacy admittees make up the bottom half of the bell curve. Institutions -- if they must be racist -- should be racist in a more sensible way and try to avoid that result.

Because really, if the Asian applicant knows he has to score 200 points better than a Black applicant just to have the same chance of getting in, it's not only racist on the part of the institution, but it powerfully reinforces stereotypes about Black intelligence for everyone going through the process.

Blogger cubanbob said...Apparently ARM cannot distinguish the difference between legacy admissions who on their own merits would qualify without the legacy

In which case they would not be counted as legacy students.

To be consistent in your opposition to AA you have to oppose legacy students, on principle.

Personally I have no problem with two kinds of AA. AA for descendants of slaves and native americans and the Texas system of automatic admission for the top fraction of every school in the state. I find legacy admissions much harder to justify than any of these other mechanisms.

Tari said...It's not a comfortable question to ask, but how many hours of Univision or BET would I have to watch before I saw a similar ad?

Why give whites a break here? I don't see much evidence of a culture of learning on any of the media favored by whites. Our degraded culture is why silicon valley has a reasonable position when they press for more asian immigration if they want to stay competitive.

In my neighborhood the fuss over standardized testing by the whites, not asians, was genuinely pathetic to witness. A large fraction of white parents and students seem to have lost the will to compete.

Gook is the Korean word for people. They call themselves Hangook, meaning people of the Han River. They call Americans Migook. I Don't know exactly what that means. Interestingly, they do not consider Japanese to be gooks.

No, gook (국 or 國) is the word for country/kingdom. The word for Japan (일본 or Il-bon) is just the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese characters used to write "Japan" (日本). From 1392 to about 1895, Koreans called their country Joseon (조선 or 朝鮮). That didn't mean they didn't think they were people. North Korea still refers to itself as Joseon, not Hangook.

The word for person, e.g. as in "a Korean person" would be 분 (boon) or 사람(saram). As in 한국분 (hangookboon) 한국사람 (hangooksaram). Sometimes 인 (in, cognate to Chinese 人) is used instead.

The word for "people" in the Völkisch sense would be something like 국민 or 國民 (Goongmin), cognate with Chinese and Japanese.

Actually, strike that last line -- Goongmin/kokumin/國民 has been used in that sense, but it really just means the citizenry of the country today, at least in Korea and Japan. Today, I don't think it has the strong blut und boden connotations it has sometimes had.

ARM - I think AA is dumb, racist, and counterproductive. But if Harvard wants to engage in it so that its minions feel better about their progressive selves, then fine, do it. It is very, very different when state govt schools like the UC system mentioned above engage in AA. That is only partly legal according to the US Constitution (esp Equal Protection under 14th Amdt), and should be completely illegal (as the UC racial preferences or quotas are supposed to be under CA law). It was only Justice O'Conner's idiotic 25 years that saved them, for awhile in some cases for state schools.

In my neighborhood the fuss over standardized testing by the whites, not asians, was genuinely pathetic to witness. A large fraction of white parents and students seem to have lost the will to compete.

One sees a lot of anxiety over the concept of standardised testing amongst first generation Asian immigrants. My impression is that a lot of Asians who have had limited experience in White-majority countries assume that White average academic performance is a lot better than it actually is, and conclude erroneously that it is going to be a lot harder for Asians to score well than it actually is. In Asia the competition for high test scores is insane, so how much worse must it be in the US, the most powerful nation on the Earth? Or so some people seem to reason.

Conversely, in my experience, many of them also assume that soft power (i.e. exploiting relationships) will be a lot more effective at securing high marks for them in the US than it actually is, since they underestimate the degree to which discretion is going to be used deliberately to suppress Asian students in favour of other minorities.

So, why is a Harvard degree so valuable? And ditto for most of the Ivy League, as well as liberal arts colleges like Williams? Two things primarily: connections and signaling. A recent Harvard undergraduate degree likely says that you are really really smart (and maybe somewhat connected) or really connected and/or rich. (In Al Gore's day it mostly just meant connected). Many who go to schools like Harvard come away with business connections that follow them through life. But maybe more important is the signalling effect of these degrees. Without such degrees (from maybe 20 schools in the country), doors are much harder to open in the top tiers of govt, consulting, law, etc.

I read an interesting article recently on this subject. Besides the schools you attend, other things are also important - for example what sports you engaged in. Football and maybe even baseball are bad. Lacrosse, polo, and maybe sailing are good. Also (snow) skiing. 4H is bad, as well as graduating from a state school.

Does Harvard provide that much better of an education? I don't think so. But it may justify its cost through signalling and connections. But I think that only 10-20 schools in the country can justify their costs on those grounds.

@Balfegor: "really, if the Asian applicant knows he has to score 200 points better than a Black applicant just to have the same chance of getting in, it's not only racist on the part of the institution, but it powerfully reinforces stereotypes about Black intelligence for everyone going through the process."

Fine and dandy. But as an American of Korean descent, I've discovered that some persons (not necessarily Americans), having posed the question, "What are you?", will not accept the simple answer, "American." The standard follow-up is, "No, what are you REALLY?" or "What were you ORIGINALLY?"

And the standard defense for this line of questioning is, it's just natural curiosity, Asians have been in this country for only 1-2 generations (really?) and besides, are you ASHAMED of your Asian heritage, or something???

But if you'd like to help me out, coupe, I'd more than welcome your assistance.

MDT: Oh, but "You people all look alike" is the entire point. Asians: They're fungible.

Ah, c'mon. I wish people would give that "'they all look alike' is so racist!" thing a rest. We do all look alike to people who don't have much acquaintance with our population.

Anybody who has spent much time as a racial minority amidst a racially homogeneous majority knows that. Yes, even us white people, who are supposedly so easily distinguishable by our varying hair and eye color, can "all look alike" to an inexperienced, casual observer of another race. It doesn't tell you squat about anybody's attitude to anything.

"A large fraction of white parents and students seem to have lost the will to compete."

I don't see it that way, ARM. My grandchildren are in public school because private schools, where I sent my kids, have just gotten too expensive around here. I can't afford to pay for them anymore.

What they are having trouble with is the teaching methods, which are lumped under Common Core but which may just be the latest fad among ed school graduates and faculty.

My grandson is having trouble with 4th grade math. His teacher told his mother that she can't do the problems either using the prescribed methods which seem more like numeracy games played by math majors.

She suggested that his mother, who runs a very successful home-based business, teach him herself using traditional methods.

Imagine a poorly educated parent trying to make their way through this maze.

Standardized testing is not the problem. Teaching basics like math and reading is boring to poorly motivated ed school grads and "professors" with Ed D degrees. They prefer fads like "New math" and "see and say reading."

The goal is to make math more exciting, and the lessons more creative. So, instead of regurgitating facts back to the teacher, students reason their way through. It's an effort to do away with that "Why do I have to know this?" feeling you used to get after you did your math homework, which will get kids ready to compete in the global economy.

Except it won't help. It is just a fad and will pass away like the others. Meanwhile the kids struggle.

MisterBuddwing: Fine and dandy. But as an American of Korean descent, I've discovered that some persons (not necessarily Americans), having posed the question, "What are you?", will not accept the simple answer, "American." The standard follow-up is, "No, what are you REALLY?" or "What were you ORIGINALLY?"

If they're American, pester 'em with the same questions they're asking you. Should work with anybody. Even Navajos aren't REALLY ORIGINALLY from North America.

Or, I'd just keep repeating "American" looking more and more puzzled as the interrogation continues. Adopt the fixed gaze and pained polite smile of someone who's stuck dealing with a crazy person. That should work for foreigners OR Americans.

Alternatively, mess with their heads. You're of Korean descent? Keep a poker face and tell them your ancestors came from Sweden. Or the Congo. Bonus, you can get vast amusement from those of your questioners who will swallow all this with a face as straight as your own.

The correct answer is "I am an American" and if you wish to embellish that, you can say "I have some Korean ancestry."

As soon as you hyphenate, you are no longer an American. Most Americans are mongrels. This part is understood. You don't have to hyphenate to remark this.

My own ancestry in America only goes back two generations on my fathers side, and fresh off the boat on my mothers side. If I feel like being superior I might call myself French-Scandinavian-American with two hyphens, and then some skin-head will probably put me to deserved death at a Polka dance, with a bratwurst in his hand...

Michael K: My grandson is having trouble with 4th grade math. His teacher told his mother that she can't do the problems either using the prescribed methods which seem more like numeracy games played by math majors.

Math majors? Ha, that would be an improvement on the programs one of my kids got saddled with in grade school, which seemed to be designed by complete innumerates. (This was sprung on us out of the blue at the beginning of a new school year, the existing, very good math program having been ditched by the usual suspects over the summer without any discussion.)

We bought our own texts and home-schooled her in math for the rest of her grade school career. She would have been SOL for learning any higher math later if we hadn't, as were the unfortunates whose parents went along with all the b.s. about "higher order cognition" and "deeper understanding" allegedly inculcated by their dumbed-down, incoherent new program.

MK, teaching math is clearly difficult because a large fraction of students tune out almost automatically. I largely blame the parents for this, because they haven't made math an integral part of family life, like the english language. I have much the same view on the skills required to manufacture things. A strong manufacturing industry starts in the home, where children learn that not everything has to come from Amazon, you can actually make some things yourself. Even though it is bit precious at times, the Maker movement has been a very positive development in recent years.

"MK, teaching math is clearly difficult because a large fraction of students tune out almost automatically. "

This is true of many parents but I'm referring to well educated parents who do not have time to home school. I think this is a far better alternative but not everyone can live on one income.

A friend of mine in Arizona had his birthday yesterday and celebrated his son's graduation from U of Arizona with a degree in petroleum engineering. His wife had homeschooled each of their three sons for a year at a time as they went through school. She would take one each year and they would return to private (Catholic) school the next year.

He is an airline pilot and can afford to do this. The son who graduated yesterday is a big handsome kid with skill as a classical pianist, as well as his engineering.

I doubt his mind spent a nanosecond on Harvard.

The eldest is a Marine officer hoping for flight school (like his father) and the youngest is now at U of A, year 2. I just hope he doesn't get some of the idiots my daughter had there.

I dunno - you're right, I really shouldn't. The anti-education bent of most of the community in which I grew up was startling. And everyone was white.

Balfegor said "Conversely, in my experience, many of them also assume that soft power (i.e. exploiting relationships) will be a lot more effective at securing high marks for them in the US than it actually is, since they underestimate the degree to which discretion is going to be used deliberately to suppress Asian students in favour of other minorities."

The Asian students my older son has been at school with still think the US is all a meritocracy. They are unbelievably racist (especially the Chinese), and will talk about when they grow up, they will run everything (because they are the smartest, of course). They point to my son and say "you will do my taxes", and then they point to an Hispanic student and say "you will mow my lawn." And so on (what they think of African Americans is really not worth repeating). What they don't understand at their age is that the soft power structures in place will not work in their favor, as you said. In my experience, the folks who get C's will all go into business/sales, and they will run things in real life. Those of us who got A's and B's get to be their doctors, attorneys and accountants. Being Chinese will not exempt these kids from this, and may in fact exacerbate it.

I'm sorry that the Supreme Court has decided that the only valid basis for affirmative action in favor of Blacks is "the educational value of diversity". As a result, you get Black students in schools and colleges for which they are not adequately prepared, likely not to perform well, perhaps to flunk out or graduate at the bottom of the class -- whereas at a school or college one tier lower they might have succeeded.

Why?

For the benefit of the White students who have received the benefit of sitting in the same classroom with some Black students. Blacks are made to sacrifice for the benefit of Whites.

Ah, c'mon. I wish people would give that "'they all look alike' is so racist!" thing a rest.

The "they all look alike" thing happens for two reasons.

1) Most Asians do look much more alike than most Europeans. With few exceptions all Asians have dark hair, dark eyes and a similar skin color.

2) Most Americans are frankly absurdly ignorant about geography, and most couldn't name more than two or three Asian countries, and could probably only locate one of them on a map.

I am usually pretty good about identifying the various Asians, but you have to be careful. For instance, the Japanese and Koreans are genetically identical (modern Japanese are really Koreans who emigrated - the Ainu are the real Japanese) and look similar, but it could be literally worth your life to misidentify one as the other. They hate each other with a passion, far worse than the whole English-French or French-German thing.

Fine and dandy. But as an American of Korean descent, I've discovered that some persons (not necessarily Americans), having posed the question, "What are you?", will not accept the simple answer, "American." The standard follow-up is, "No, what are you REALLY?" or "What were you ORIGINALLY?"

I really think you are being too sensitive here. I've been asked the same question, and gotten the same response. We are a nation of immigrants, and EVERYONE is from somewhere else. The next time you should simply respond: Korea...and where are your ancestors from?"

The sad thing is, many of them won't know...so you actually have the advantage of them.

By Althousian standards, aesthetics are a lot more important than Constitutional principles. I'm a lawyer, and everyone I know spends much more time talking about how things look than about the Constitution (which rarely comes up in day-to-day conversation at all).

Even Eichmann would shrink from the job that these bastards have placed at the center of political culture; hair splitting over who is of whatever sort and by how much and how to divide the spoils accordingly. Is a person with an Hispanic surname who speaks no Spanish more or less Hispanic than a person with an English surname who speaks no English? What is an Asian? Someone from Asia or is that too simplistic? What about an African? Is a white immigrant from South Africa an African American? If not, why not? Does one drop of non-white blood get out out of being sentenced to whiteness? Is Elizabeth Warren an Indian? I can be any gender I claim to be but can I be any race I claim? Why not? The most dedicated Nazi would shoot himself before attempting to sort this out.

buwaya puti: This is not the way it works in Asia.The Chinese own entire economies.They aren't mere nerds in spite of appearances.The boasting you hear is not uninformed.They mean it.

Damn, looks like whitey should never have repealed that Chinese Exclusion Act.

All joking aside, whites aren't Asians, and even the SWPLiest of white multiculturalist kool-aid drinkers, underneath it all, wants to live in the a nice European society that's tailored to his own cultural preferences. And the fact is, contrary to propaganda, whites don't need Chinese or Asians of any kind around to create and maintain such a society. So if our new Chinese overlords get too high-handed and won't stay out of our hair, there will be a backlash.

I don't mean the kind that annoyed Malays and other fed-up non-Chinese Asians get up to - I doubt it will involve any kind of violence. Ha, I predict the charge will be led by the same white liberals who've been shitting all over prole-ier whites for being racists, lo these many decades.

"A Reasonable Man" is unable or unwilling to confront the concept of protected classes that is central to the application of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. For the equivalence you seek, write your Congress(person) and ask them to include amongs th protected classes non-legacy admissions in higher education.

I don't think there will be an effective defense against Chinese encroachment on the commanding heights of US society. The SWPL class is effete, just like the various Asian nobilities the Chinese sidelined. And more, unlike the Asian aristocrats, the SWPL class has zero sense of ethnic solidarity with its peasantry, and the white peasantry is terminally alienated from the SWPL class. There is no way to create a populist backlash like the Malays did. The only option for the SWPLs, in order to maintain their position, will be to mate with the top dog Chinese. This was the Filipino approach.

buwaya puti, I wasn't saying that the Chinese aren't capable of running things, or shouldn't be running things... but the truth of the matter is, they are not running things in the US. I live in the most diverse city in the US - Houston - and there are a small (very small) handful of people of Asian descent who are in positions of power, either "soft" power or actual power. For example, one school district out of 12 in the greater Houston area has one Asian-American board member, there are only 2 Asian-American representatives to the Texas House in the 8 county Houston metropolitan area, there are no federal or state court judges in Harris county who are Asian-American, the 3 largest law firms in town have a total of 3 Asian-American partners (1 has none), of the "who's who in energy" list the Houston Business Journal puts out every year, no one on the list is Asian-American, none of the hospitals or medical schools in the TMC are run by an Asian-American .... I could go on and on. I'm not saying any of this is how things should be, just that these racist middle schoolers have a long way to go before they are "running things", even in an incredibly diverse and change-loving city.

" Those of us who got A's and B's get to be their doctors, attorneys and accountants. Being Chinese will not exempt these kids from this, and may in fact exacerbate it."

I see a lot of Asian kids who are joining the military. I also see lots of them who are in medical school. I think there is some arrogance in them but most seem pretty level headed.

I see black kids who want nothing to do with American blacks. They don't understand the victim thing. The ones from other countries think American blacks have got the greatest opportunity in the world and are throwing it away.

The Chinese have traditionally been "The Jews of the Orient" and know it. The Japanese are not as common where I am. I don't see them nearly as much as I see young Korean kids and Chinese kids.

I mentioned this to my students and mentioned that the military rejects applicants with more than 9 diopters of myopia. My Chinese-American student said she had 10 diopters of myopia. 90% of students in Singapore are myopic and it seems to be related to studying but also to time outdoors.

Chinese parents have been told to allow children more outdoor time but they don't do it. Ethnic Chinese in Australia have much less myopia and spend much more time outdoors than those in China.

Me: That may be, but that's not why "they all look alike". Knowing where a country is on a map doesn't tell you anything about what its people look like.

Gahrie: But not knowing it exists sure does.

Whuh?

Ask 10 average Americans how many Asian countries they can name. Let me know how many say more than China, Japan and maybe Vietnam?

Whuh?

Look, you're just plain wrong about the sources of the "they all look alike" phenomenon common to humans. It's found in Asians as well as non-Asians, and knowing where a country is on a map doesn't contribute anything to the development of a the ability to distinguish individuals of that country one from the other if you go there.

Look, you're just plain wrong about the sources of the "they all look alike" phenomenon common to humans. It's found in Asians as well as non-Asians, and knowing where a country is on a map doesn't contribute anything to the development of a the ability to distinguish individuals of that country one from the other if you go there

If you don't know that a country exists, how could you possibly know that someone was from there?

ARM: If you don't know that a country exists, how could you possibly know that someone was from there?

Must be National Obtuse Weekend or something.

The topic isn't knowing where people came from. We're talking about being able to tell individuals in a population apart.

But yeah, you guys are probably right. My company's Asian clients could mistake my black-haired Western self for blonde and even flamingly red-headed Western colleagues because they couldn't find France and Germany on a map of Europe and never heard of Wales. Obvious explanation.

I'm caucasian. Does that tell you what what country I'm from?I'm Japanese. Does that tell you what country I'm from? Not if my name is Alberto Fujimori.Some of the people commenting here about the ignorance of Americans are ignorant themselves. Unlike the Japanese, the Chinese are known to spread wide and far throughout the Western Pacific. The are merchants. They are traders. They may have been born Indonesia or Fiji, but they are Chinese in a different way than German Americans are German. The national boundaries of countries in the Far East are often a result of colonial history, not the history of the people that live in them.